author

Letitia M. Burwell

A sharp, personal voice from nineteenth-century Virginia, remembered today for memoirs that bring the rhythms of plantation life into view. Her books are often read as firsthand historical documents, even as they reflect the biases and arguments of their time.

2 Audiobooks

A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War

A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War

by Letitia M. Burwell

Plantation Reminiscences

Plantation Reminiscences

by Letitia M. Burwell

About the author

Writing in the late nineteenth century, Letitia M. Burwell is best known for A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War, first published in 1895. Project Gutenberg and the Online Books Page also list Plantation Reminiscences among her works, with Burwell connected to the pseudonym Page Thacker.

Her memoirs look back on her girlhood in Virginia before the Civil War, focusing on family routines, social customs, and plantation life. Because these books were written decades after the events they describe, readers often value them as firsthand recollections while also reading them critically for their idealized view of the antebellum South and slavery.

Reliable biographical details about Burwell herself are limited in the sources I could confirm here. I could verify her authorship and the titles of her books, but I could not confirm a trustworthy portrait image from the pages I checked, so no profile image is included.